Matterhorn (45 page)

“He means the ones that got wasted,” Mellas whispered to the new lieutenant next to him without turning his head. Captain
Coates touched Mellas’s boot with his own.

“We took command of this battalion at the commencement of Operation Cathedral Forest,” the colonel continued, “a drive deep
into the DMZ that resulted in significant findings of matériel, significant contact, and significant kills. From Cathedral
Forest to Wind River, at the gateway to Laos. I’m sure many of you recall with fondness our friends from Co Roc.” About half
of the officers laughed. Hawke wasn’t one of them.

“Well, we got our own artillery. Fire Support Base Lookout, Puller, Sherpa, Margo, Sierra, Sky Cap.” The colonel paused. “And
Matterhorn.” He looked at his silent officers. “We’re building fountainheads of steel right in the gooks’ backyard. We’re
denying him the use of his own transportation network, forcing him to go farther and farther west, making his resupply more
and more difficult for his operations in the populated provinces to our south.” Simpson paused here and changed his tone.
“We’ve been sitting on our asses around Cam Lo and in my opinion abandoned our mission.” He leaned across the table. “Well,
gentlemen, we are
through
with the political bullshit. From now on we’ll be back at our real job, closing with and destroying the enemy. Wherever he
may be. And gentlemen, I know where he is. I know.” He was leaning on his arms and looking intently at them, his eyes darting
back and forth. Then he stood up for effect, head high, shoulders back.

Mellas raised his eyebrows, looking at Hawke across from him.

“He’s around Matterhorn,” the colonel continued. His eyes glittered. He leaned forward again, his small red hands in fists
on the table. “Yes, goddamn it, Matterhorn. The gooks are there. Hiding. And by God we’re going to walk in there someday and
kill every one of the yellow sons of bitches. We were ordered off Matterhorn, against my will, and against my own and my operations
officer’s best judgment, to fulfill the
wishes of some fat-assed politicians back in Washington. But every sign”—he emphasized his words with his fist—“every single
piece of intelligence, every little contact”—he pushed back and smiled—“my fucking nose”—he touched it—“tells me that the
NVA are in there, and in force. And that area is ours, gentlemen. We paid for it. In blood. And we’ll get our due.”

“That’s bullshit,” Mellas whispered to the new lieutenant. “There’s nothing up there but leeches and malaria.”

Coates elbowed Mellas in the ribs and glared at him. Hawke was staring stonily at his fork.

“We had to leave Matterhorn before our work there was finished,” Simpson continued, “and Marines never leave their work unfinished.
I promise you this, gentlemen: I’ll do every goddamned thing I can to get this battalion where it belongs. That’s where the
fighting’s going to be. That’s where I want to be. That’s where Major Blakely wants to be, and I know that’s where every Marine
in this battalion wants to be.”

At this point McCarthy quietly belched, out of earshot of the head table.

“So, gentlemen,” the colonel went on, “I’d like to propose a toast to the best goddamned fighting battalion in Vietnam today.
Here’s to the Tigers of Tarawa, the Frozen Chosen of Chosin Reservoir. Here’s to the First Battalion Twenty-Fourth Marines.”

The officers stood, echoing the toast. Then they sat down with the colonel, who received congratulations on his fine toast
from Blakely.

Coates turned to Mellas, his eyes dancing with deep humor. “Cool down, Lieutenant Mellas. Colonel Mulvaney will never let
him near the place. You don’t commit an entire battalion to an area covered by enemy artillery that we can’t go after because
of political reasons. Add to that uncertain air support because of the weather. That’s why Mulvaney pulled us out in the first
place. Return to Matterhorn? Nevah hoppin.”

Mellas was surprised. “Here I thought you were a lifer,” he said, smiling.

“I am, Lieutenant Mellas. But I ain’t stupid. And
I
also know how to keep my mouth shut.”

Mellas awoke the next morning to hard rain slashing against the tent. Relsnik, on radio watch, was hunched in his poncho liner
staring out into the dark. Mellas’s first thought was hopeful. With rain like that, no choppers would be able to fly. Anyone
who got into the shit would have to rely on something besides the Bald Eagle to get rescued. He wrapped the snoopy around
his shoulders, never wanting to leave its security. He remained in a snug ball but was slowly losing a fight with his bladder.
He gave up and ran out into the rain to piss.

When he got back inside the tent, Fitch was up, starting coffee.

“No way we can get launched today,” Mellas said.

Fitch squinted into the darkness. He turned to his radio operator. “Hey, Snik, see if you can get a weather report out of
battalion.”

The weather report wasn’t good. It was supposed to stop raining by midmorning. That meant the choppers could fly.

An hour later Mellas was at the supply tent, doing paperwork that ranged from writing press releases for local newspapers
about the activities of local boys to handling inquiries about paternity suits from Red Cross workers to straightening out
paycheck allocations to divorced wives, current wives, and women illegally claiming to be wives, mothers, and mothers-in-law.
To Mellas it seemed as if half the company came from broken homes and had wives or parents who were drunks, dope addicts,
runaways, prostitutes, or child beaters. Two things about this surprised him. The first was the fact itself. The second was
that everyone seemed to cope with it so well.

A runner dropped off a small stack of papers and radio messages from battalion. Included were orders transferring Staff Sergeant
Cassidy to H & S Company. Mellas marveled at Sergeant Major Knapp’s efficiency. He looked back into the gloom of the tent
where Cassidy and two helpers were trying to straighten out a mess of equipment and steeled himself for what had to follow.
“Hey, Gunny,” he said, feigning excitement and getting up from the table, “you’ve got orders out of the bush. Look at this.”
He walked back with the triplicate orders.

Cassidy looked at Mellas in surprise. “What? Let me see ’em.” He furrowed his brow, reading the order slowly. It was a routine
set, transferring a lot of people. His name was singled out by a neat rubber-stamped arrow. The words
ORIGINAL ORDERS
were
stamped in bold capitals across the mimeographed sheet. “Well, I’ll be fucked,” he said.

“Where are you going, Gunny?” one of the Marines asked. Both of them were grinning broadly, happy that anyone was escaping
the bush alive.

“Well, I’ll be fucked,” Cassidy said again. He sat down. “H & S Company. I didn’t know nothing about it.” He looked up at
Mellas. “I don’t see nothing about my replacement.”

“He’s probably coming in from division or someplace.”

Cassidy said, “Well, sir, I’d like to go see what I’ll be doing. No one told me nothing. I swear.”

“Sure, Gunny, go ahead. I’ll honcho this.”

Cassidy sent the two Marines to chow, with orders to send two replacements back afterward. Then he walked off to see his new
company commander.

Vancouver was one of the two Marines who managed to wangle work in the supply tent rather than fill sandbags in the rain.
He and the other kid were soon rummaging through the damp, often mildewed bags of personal gear left behind by Marines who
had rotated home or been killed.

“Hey, Vancouver,” the other kid said. “Here’s something that’s yours.”

When Vancouver saw the long rectangular box he felt a foreboding. It was his sword. It had been a funny shtick when he ordered
it. He thought it had been lost for good. Now he said—but it was as if he heard someone else’s voice saying—“Jesus Christ.
Hey, it’s my fucking gook sword. It’s been here all along.” He was tearing at the paper, pulling the long handle and sheath
from the narrow box. He grabbed the hilt and, with a ringing sound, drew the sword from its sheath.

Mellas had turned at the sound of Vancouver’s cry.

“Look at this mother, Lieutenant,” Vancouver crowed. He was standing on top of two seabags, his feet spread apart, holding
the sword in front of him. He took a quick slash at the air. “I’m gonna get some now,” he said through clenched teeth.

By late afternoon word of Vancouver’s sword had made its way through the entire battalion. A friend of Jancowitz’s from H
& S stopped by the sandbag detail to tell Jancowitz about it. Jancowitz had a feeling of despair which he couldn’t identify
and which he quickly forced back into the reservoir of other feelings he’d fought down for the past year and a half. “Crazy
fucker,” he said, smiling. “He’ll get some, too. You wait and see.”

“Yeah, he might,” his friend told him, “but the gooks ain’t hardly going to use swords. They ain’t no fucking savages.”

“Yeah, but Vancouver is,” Jancowitz retorted. People laughed. His friend grinned and set off down the road. Jancowitz turned
sadly back to his pile of dirt.

All day Bravo Company dug in the clay, filling the green plastic bags, trying to forget that at any second an officer in an
air-conditioned bunker in Dong Ha or Da Nang could call in the helicopters that would carry them to some unknown spot in the
jungle where they would die. They tried with every shovelful to forget that at any moment the company jeep might come tearing
across the narrow airstrip, with Pallack shouting that someone was in the shit and Bravo Company was going to bail them out.

Jancowitz was as anxious as everybody else. He tried to think of Susi, but he was having a hard time remembering her face.
He was embarrassed to take out his wallet in front of everyone and look at her picture, so he remained torn between wanting
to do just that and not wanting to appear foolish. The guys would laugh and say she was just another fucking bar girl. He
couldn’t have taken that. He’d signed on for an extra six months of fear and filth just to spend thirty days with her. He
threw himself into filling the next sandbag.

At 1700 they folded their E-tools and walked in twos and threes back toward their tents. Broyer had joined Jancowitz, his
eyeglasses steaming slightly from the perspiration dripping from his forehead. “Hey, Janc,” he said, wiping the glasses on
his shirttail. “What we got an assistant general for anyway?” He was referring to the one-star general who resided at Task
Force Hotel and whose red flag with a single gold star on it they had stared at all day while filling sandbags for his bunker.
He put the glasses back on. They promptly slid forward. Annoyed, he pushed them back onto his nose, but then they started
to steam up again.

Jancowitz didn’t answer. He was thinking of Susi, trying to block out the smell of oil that had been sprayed on the road and
the smoke that came from the efforts of a lone Marine who was burning shit with kerosene in three sawed-off steel barrels.
Eventually, though, Broyer’s question worked its way into his consciousness. He looked at Broyer. When Broyer showed up on
Matterhorn, Jancowitz had been worried about his thin frame and hesitant way of talking. But he didn’t worry about Broyer
anymore—a good fucking Marine. “Fucked if I know, Broyer. General Neitzel probably needs someone to handle his paperwork.”

“Way I hear it, he needs someone to handle his fighting. First order he gave was for everyone to button their utility shirts.
Sheeit.”

Jancowitz smiled, listening to Broyer, who was trying to make his “shit” sound cool. Jancowitz had been in-country when the
previous general had arrived and had heard the same kind of bitching. Jancowitz had his own criterion for whether or not a
general, or any other officer for that matter, was any good, and that was the number of times he saw the officer out in the
bush with the snuffs. That’s why he liked Colonel Mulvaney. He’d been out on the lines at VCB one night, raining like hell,
dark as a motherfucker, when he heard this jeep coming up. He thought it was Hawke. So he hollered out, “What the fuck you
doing out here?” He about shit his pants when it turned out to be Mulvaney, the commander of the whole Twenty-Fourth Marine
Regiment. The old fucker had proceeded to ask him if he’d killed any rats, inspect his rifle, and tell him he was doing a
good job.

“Lieutenant Mellas doesn’t give a shit if we don’t button our utility shirts,” Broyer went on.

“Yeah. Only he won’t stay in.”

“You going to stay in?” Broyer asked after a moment.

“I don’t know. I got this girl in Bangkok.” Jancowitz smiled. “How about you?”

“I want to go to the University of Maryland on the GI Bill and get into government work.” Broyer hesitated. “Maybe the State
Department.” He looked quickly at Jancowitz to see if there was any reaction. Then he smiled ruefully. “I thought being a
Marine would look good on my résumé.”

“What’s a résumé?” Jancowitz asked. He saw that Broyer was surprised that he didn’t know but was trying not to let on.

“You use it when you’re looking for a job. It’s a couple of pages that tells your experience, where you went to school. That
sort of thing.”